How Black Women Bloggers Have Built a #BodyPosi Squad All Their Own

On Instagram, #selfcare makes for good content. Users have tagged over 2.5 million posts—acai bowls, atmospheric candles, yoga mats, green juice—with the hashtag. More than 75,000 people are practicing it on #selfcaresunday, and 25,000-plus photos bear witness to the fact that #selfcarematters. And it does; marginalized populations have performed self-care for centuries in the face of systemic oppression. But the term, whether it refers to critical activist work or a kind of spiritual nourishment, suggests that it's possible to practice care on our own. The truth is we exist in matrices of allies and friends who do this work for us. If we're honest, it isn't #selfcare. It's #squadcare. This week, ELLE.com scholars at Wake Forest University go deep on just what that means.

I'd be lying if I said that I thought of this moment then as an existential crisis. At the time, I just wanted the shoes. But the story, which I hear my mother tell every time someone mentions strong-willed children, has taken on a new significance for 22-year-old me, who thinks frequently about how the broader fashion industry—not just shoes or the latest trend on Instagram—doesn't seem to fit underrepresented women, including women of color, full-figured women, and especially full-figured women of color.

Sometimes the business tries to do better—it tries to be representative of more women, hiring plus-size models who tend to have flat stomachs and fair skin. Most wear sizes 8 and 10—not plus-size by any standards other than high-fashion standards. When models of color do appear in print, their hair is often straightened and their complexions are flawless. Growing up and never seeing yourself in the magazines and television shows you consume—it feels like shoving your foot into a shoe that doesn't fit.

Which is why the work that these three Black women bloggers and vloggers do is so essential. Here, SheRea DelSol, Brie Wright, and Marché Robinson talk about fitting and not fitting into the worlds of mainstream style and beauty. All three insist they don't shatter conventional expectations on their own and wouldn't want to, explaining that its their squads and support systems that make their work not only possible, but a joy.

SheRea DelSol, 25, plus-size fashion and beauty vlogger

Courtesy SheRea DelSol

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A stylish, thrifted closet. Smooth, chestnut brown skin. A full-figured body. With more than 69,000 Instagram followers, 48,00 YouTube subscribers, and an audience of almost 9,375 on Facebook, SheRea DelSol is showing the internet that taking care of a Black woman's body is itself an act of resistance. She lives and works at the intersection of body positivity and fashion, though she acknowledges that the industry has never fully embraced large Black women.

When she was a 19-year-old student, DelSol started My Thrifted Closet, an online platform to showcases her love of affordable fashion. "I was Black, fat, and newly natural at Wake Forest [University], and I didn't see folks who looked like me," she says. "I looked toward the blog world to be affirmed, represented, inspired, and uplifted." Her platforms, including a YouTube channel and an online closet shop, in addition to her social media sites, have since grown as a way to encourage women to love their bodies and hair—on a budget.

But there are questions and judgments about the decisions women make regarding their bodies, no matter their size. But if a woman wears a double-digit dress size, it's assumed that weight loss is on her mind; she must want to be thin. DelSol pushes back, but she admits that she thinks about her responsibility to her readers: "Being a bigger person, and a plus-size blogger, how do you lose weight without messaging that everyone has to lose weight now?"

For DelSol, navigating the expectations around fashion, beauty, and her online presence requires positive talk and a squad that can provide it—not only for her, but also for her audience. "Society really breaks me," DelSol says. "All the racism, sexism, [and] fat-phobia—that actually really breaks me down." It's important to have communities—multiple communities—when her identity and body are in the crosshairs of oppression. And when her friends approach her with negative views of their own bodies, she returns their support. Frankly, she says, "I have to shut that shit down." These affirmative relationships have become essential in combating people and systems that devalue her. And she's determined to share that outlook with her 127,000-plus followers; truly, #squadgoals. On her various platforms, DelSol thrives off of her followers' energy and support. Offline, she makes sure to connect with the best friends she's known since high school.

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"Having fundamental people to really hold you down is important, but [so is] knowing when to back away from certain people and certain situations," she says. It's not always all about the squad. She values "personal fleek," as she says, too, which can mean doing her hair—whether it's her natural hair or some type of protective style—or sharing her makeup routine. It all goes into making her self-care and squad care practices come together.

When I speak to Wright, she proclaims she is "a mother machine." At first, the idea of a mechanical, emotionally detached machine doesn't seem to fit with the idea of a mother. Wright has two sets of twins, and when I picture her, I try to see knobs and buttons that are programmed to perform.

Then I imagine her in what seems like an opposite role—as an editor and "creative machine," sitting behind her desk at work, analyzing her fashion site, making sure every story is ready to run on schedule. I imagine her hosting and attending philanthropic events, representing herself and her brand between carpool duties, bottle feedings, and every other task that her job as a "mother machine" requires.

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But then she lets me in on a very human secret: It's her mom and sister who make it possible. Wright depends on them to support her two identities, as a mother and a creative. "I cannot be a good wife, and a good mother, and a good editor, and a good sister, all at the same time," she says. "Something has to be sacrificed, and that's okay. I still need help."

A new image forms, replacing the one of Wright in mechanical armor, caring for four little ones while her phone rings. In its place, a new scene. Two friends come to do her laundry after her first twins were born. Her mother and her sister drop in to remind her she doesn't have to be that "mother machine" at all times. The fact that she has to take care of others doesn't mean she doesn't need her squad to care for her, too.

Wright explains that she doesn't wait until the point of brokenness to ask for help and to take the time she needs to care for herself. "[Care] starts with having time alone," Wright says. "It's taking some time out to breathe and to do something that makes me feel like a human being—spending time with my mom and sister."

Wright says that she began working in public relations and fell into fashion when she wanted to pitch a story to a local magazine. "I realized there wasn't one, so I started one," she says. "It's important to me to show that Black women and Black people are capable of managing brands that cater to a wide demographic."

In her work, she aims to build up other women, as other women have done for her. "I hope to empower women," she says. But, she cautions, "I try not to [...] give a false narrative that women can do everything with no help."

Marché Robinson, 31, founder of Robinson Style

Courtesy Marche Robinson

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Marché Robinson's fashion blog is a place where Black women can see something they don't get enough of in mainstream media—photos of women they recognize.

"Women want to see women who look like them," says Robinson, founder of Robinson Style. "And I think that's something that is missing in the fashion industry."

The lack helped motivate Robinson to launch her blog in 2011. Because while her blog is a creative outlet for her to showcase her love for fashion and creative expression, she adds that it's just as important to her "just to reach a lot of women." When she started Robinson Style, there weren't as many bloggers and there were even fewer bloggers of color. And so what started as a post-law school hobby became a platform to reach the kind of women that the mainstream fashion industry wasn't speaking to.

When it comes to representation of women of color, traditional media outlets fall short, Robinson says. And that's where bloggers fill the gap. "The thing I love about blogging is that it's always been an arena where real women show other women how they express themselves with fashion," Robinson explains. "I think that blogging [has shown] designers and fashion houses that there is definitely an audience out there looking for diversity."

Robinson has given them an online home, and they've returned the favor. "I've met so many readers...[and I don't think] they realize how much they've positively impacted me," she says. Their support encourages her to continue to pursue her interests in fashion, and sometimes leads to offline friendships; a community that comes out of the blogger world.

Though Robinson, who has a full-time job, is successful in both the blogging and corporate worlds, she doesn't want her audience to think she's superhuman. Too often, Black women are held to unrealistic standards of achievement, and Robinson says she needs her squad—which is made up of fellow fashion lovers, online fans, and law-school friends—to remind her not to burn out. Her friends encourage her to relax and unplug when her responsibilities become excessive. "We practice squad care by holding each accountable," she explains. Her squad reminds her, she says, that "I can't do everything and be everything to every person."

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